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Like the dinosaur in the Jeep mirror in the movie Jurassic Park, I think it the prospect of low carbon hydrocarbon fuel is a lot closer than it appears. Unlike the dinosaur, it's not scary. It's a good future.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) today released an independent study projecting the positive economic impact of the Department of Treasury Grant Program (TGP) and the Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit (MITC). The study found that extending the TGP and MITC by two years would add 200,000 new domestic jobs to the solar workforce and supporting industries in the United States. Additionally, it would result in 10 gigawatts (MW) of new solar installations by 2016 – enough to power 2 million homes. “The clean energy grant program created in last year’s stimulus bill allowed enough renewable energy to come on line to power four cities the size of Seattle and create over 140,000 new jobs,” Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said. “Extension of the Treasury Grant program is essential to continuing our nascent economic recovery and moving to a cleaner, more distributed 21st energy system.

The Competition may be a far more important Competition than realized. The goal is to beat 100 MPGe and provide beautiful, affordable transportation. That means the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon (gasoline) equivalent. This is done to level the playing field regardless of the fuel being used by the vehicle. Hence the vehicle can be powered by battery stored electricity and the energy usage can be measure equivalently with traditional gasoline.

I wanted to build my own solar system and I can tell you now it's possible with materials bought local in DIY shops and easy to obtain parts from the Internet. No I'm not a technical wonder and I don't have lots of experience working with electricity, I just looked around and taught myself how solar panels are made, how other might have done it and made out of this a workable plan of how I could do it.

Urban Green Energy is a world leader in small wind energy, focused on providing high quality, high performance, and attractive products to customers around the world. UGE's products include vertical axis wind turbines and hybrid streetlamps.

The groundbreaking Nissan LEAF is fitted with a system where the air conditioning can be programmed using a mobile like the iPhone or HTC Desire. When they are out and about, drivers can use their phone to communicate with the battery powered, electric vehicle. With just a few clicks, drivers can find out how much battery power the car has left and if they have left it charging, they can ask the vehicle to send a message when power has been fully restored. They can also request what temperature they would like the cockpit to be at when they return to the five-door hatchback.

When it's time to choose an inverter for a PV system, the system owner and the
installer have the choice to use a string inverter or micro inverters for the installation. It is
important to realistically assess the viability of this technology.

ENRGi was formed to bring the energy and costs savings of geothermal heating and cooling to residential and commercial buildings in the northern New Jersey area. Unlike most contractors that can install this equipment, we focus solely on geothermal environmental controls. In addition to having certification from the IGSHPA (International Ground Source Heat Pump Association), ENRGi also hosts educational seminars on the benefits of geothermal technology for the public.

With the Volther Solar hybrid collector, production of both electricity and hot water is done simultaneously. In PV modules, as the module temperature increases, the efficiency of the module drops down. In hybrid modules, the module heat is absorbed in order to produce hot water. In this way, PV efficiency is optimized as the heat is transferred into water for hot water production.

It is the first of its kind for Google and the company may use the extra energy to power, at least partially, its many data centers. “On Friday we made our first direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project — two wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 55,000 homes,” Rick Needham, Green Business operations manager at Google, wrote. “These wind farms, developed by NextEra Energy Resources, harness power from one of the world’s richest wind resources in the North Dakota plains and use existing transmission capacity to deliver clean energy to the region, reducing the use of fossil fuels. Through this $38.8 million investment, we’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too,” he added.

Technological innovations are underway to make these sources more affordable and efficient, which will result in their wider application. Thus, technological innovations and research and development activities for renewable energy are gathering momentum.

GE Energy Storage Technologies, a unit of GE Transportation unveiled today its Durathon battery technology for utility companies. As power consumption continues to grow, infrastructure ages, and new elements evolve such as renewables and electric vehicles, the grid is being asked to perform as never before. GE's Durathon battery technology offers an intelligent way to approach these issues. As part of a simple energy storage system, GE's Durathon battery provides an alternative to costly new power structures, which enables energy to be utilized when it's needed. Because of its proprietary chemistry, the Durathon battery has the ability to last up to two decades while providing optimal charge and discharge times. Durathon batteries are well suited for applications in extreme temperature environments because the need for an expensive controlled environment is not required to deliver peak performance. This minimizes installation costs along with the batteries high energy density.

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